Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has authority over Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, told House lawmakers that Mueller has done nothing to provide good cause to be fired. (Dec. 13)
AP

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein walks to a briefing with senators on Capitol Hill on May 18, 2017.(Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo, European Pressphoto Agency)

WASHINGTON — Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told a House committee Wednesday that he saw no reason to dismiss Robert Mueller, the special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation, even as Republicans complain that the investigators are politically biased.

In a hearing before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, Rosenstein defended Mueller's character and leadership, insisting the former FBI director now leading the investigation into Russia's interference in the presidential election took the appropriate action to remove a senior FBI agent from his team last summer after finding he exchanged overtly political text messages with a colleague.

Rosenstein's appearance came just hours after the Justice Department forwarded Congress hundreds of text messages linked to a top FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, who in long-running communications with FBI lawyer Lisa Page, variously referred to Trump as an "idiot" and "terrifying." Both expressed a clear preference for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

In one 2016 exchange, Page described Trump as a "loathsome human," prompting Strzok to respond: "Yet he may win." The communications obtained by USA TODAY on Tuesday night covered a period in which Strzok also helped oversee the FBI's investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server.

Rosenstein acknowledged that he was not personally aware of the extent of the bias expressed by Strzok in those communications, but insisted the wide-ranging probe was proceeding apace and in accordance with proper oversight channels.

"I know what he is doing," Rosenstein said of Mueller. "I am not aware of any impropriety."

Yet Judiciary committee chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia seized on the Strzok-Page disclosures to launch a broadside on the Mueller investigation, which has already resulted in the prosecutions of four Trump associates. Rep. Goodlatte, a Republican from Virginia, said the communications were "deeply troubling" and threatened the impartiality of the special counsel's inquiry and Justice Department operations.

Goodlatte said that Mueller's inquiry "must not be tainted" by the "political biases" of the two FBI officials.

"The Department of Justice's reputation as an impartial arbiter of justice has been called into question," the chairman said.

New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the panel's acting ranking Democrat, shot back that Strzok and Page were free to express their private opinions and had not expressed anything about Trump "that the majority of Americans were thinking at the same time."

Nadler, who recently took over as the top Democrat on the panel in the wake of Michigan Rep. John Conyers's resignation, said he understands Republicans' "desire to change the subject" after the recent high-profile indictments of Trump campaign advisers.

"I understand the instinct to want to give cover to the president," Nadler said to his GOP colleagues.

Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn and a former campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos, have both pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about their communications with Russian officials. Former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and campaign aide Rick Gates have been indicted — and pleaded not guilty — on charges of money laundering and other crimes.

Flynn's guilty plea on Dec. 1 brought the criminal investigation into Trump's inner circle for the first time.

Rosenstein said that he had discussed issues related to political bias with Mueller, but the deputy attorney general believed that Mueller was "ensuring" that such personal views were not influencing the investigation. "If I thought he (Mueller) was doing something inappropriate, I would take action," Rosenstein said.

Rosenstein, who oversees special counsel operations, was also asked about whether Mueller had requested permission to expand the scope of the investigation. The deputy attorney general said he had helped "clarify" the outline of the inquiry, but he declined to immediately characterize it as an expansion.

Rosenstein did, however, indicate that Mueller's team had authority to review possible obstruction of justice involving any administration official – including the president.

The president's private lawyers have recently asserted that the president, as the chief executive, is not subject to possible obstruction charges.

"I can assure you that the special counsel is conducting himself consistently with our understanding of the scope of the investigation," Rosenstein said, before offering a stirring defense of the special counsel's credibility.

"Nobody has communicated to me the desire to remove Robert Mueller," Rosenstein said. "I think it would be very difficult to find anybody better qualified for this job...I believe that, based upon his reputation, his service, his patriotism, his experience with the department and the FBI, he was an ideal choice for this task."

Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel after Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself because he served as an adviser to Trump's campaign. Sessions also was under pressure by Congress to recuse himself after he acknowledged that he was wrong when he told the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearing in January that he never met with Russian officials during the campaign.

Months later, the Mueller probe is heating up – as are conservatives' calls to discredit the investigation.

Earlier this month, Flynn was charged with lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn agreed to plead guilty as part of a deal in which he also pledged to cooperate in Mueller's continuing investigation.

But just one day later, news broke that Strzok was removed from Mueller's team last summer after the Justice Department's inspector general discovered the anti-Trump texts to Page.

Strzok has since been reassigned to the agency's human resources department, but Trump and his allies in Congress have jumped on the news as evidence that the Russia probe is biased.

In an animated exchange with Rosenstein on Wednesday, Rep. James Jordan, R-Ohio, said the communications had undermined public confidence in Mueller's inquiry and required the appointment of a second special counsel to review the matter.

"This guy (Strzok) thought he was a super agent – the James Bond at the FBI," Jordan said, referring to Strzok's communications in which he once said that he was "terrified" at the prospect of a Trump presidency.

"I think the the public trust in this thing (Mueller's inquiry) is gone," the congressman said.

Other GOP lawmakers, including Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., picked up where Jordan left off, asserting that the FBI agents' communications represented a "clear conflict of interest" that compromised the ongoing investigation.

Rosenstein countered, pointing out that it was the Justice Department that exposed the contacts and removed Strzok from the team. The communications were discovered during a separate investigation of the department's handling of the Clinton email investigation.

The deputy attorney general said he was awaiting the conclusion of an investigation led by Justice's inspector general before taking any action. That review is expected to be completed in the next few months.

There is an intractable bias & prejudice that infects Mueller’s investigation of @realDonaldTrump & his team. Look no further than Strzok, he was central to clearing @HillaryClinton by changing the information in exoneration statement from grossly negligent to extremely careless. pic.twitter.com/P0cOaygneR

While much of the hearing focused on the operations of Mueller's hearing, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., pressed Rosenstein on renewed allegations of sexual misconduct leveled against Trump by more than a dozen women.

Asked whether the president's actions were crimes, the deputy attorney general declined to offer an opinion, directing the congressman to submit any evidence to the department for review.